Best Kept Secret
by Moon Witch '96
Summary: Words are sometimes better left unsaid, but sometimes, a slip of the tongue can make it impossible to keep them unsaid. Secrets are meant to stay secret, but only sometimes... Please read and review!
1. Best Kept Secret

**An: Okay, this was caused by boredom, a fever, and me looking at the artist note... Well this was inspired by ****comfortablylaura** **on devianart. Here's a link to the picture; **.com/gallery/4399981#/d2qtyny

**Please keep in mind that I MIGHT, just might be delirious as I wrote this... **

**Disclaimer; Just no...**

His dark eyes bore into her own, and she couldn't help but feel like she was the prey of some large, wild beast that could tear her apart without a second thought. Her breath was in harsh gasps, her chest moving quickly up and down, and her heart moved in a loud and uneven beat that she swore he could hear. She didn't know why she had said them. The words that she had sworn never to say out loud, let alone to him. But she had, and the broken flask that had fallen for his grasp the second those secret words had slipped past her lips was proof of this. He never broke his hypnotic gaze, even as he came stalking forward, gait as always graceful, controlled, and dare she think it, sexy. She moved backwards trying to escape both his gaze and him, but he kept those dark, black eyes fixed on her's as he came ever closer, making her hit the stone wall of the dungeon, making her see that she no longer could run. Both of his pale, spindly arms trapped her, one on each side of her head. His velvety cold voice hissed out:

"Repeat that."

She did no such thing, brown eyes surely as big as a doe as he came even closer, his large nose resting near her own, there lips merely a breath apart. She trembled. Not only in fear, but strong desire, desire that shook her to the very depths of her soul. His eyes were still on hers, though a little blurry, by both his nearness and the unshed tears that gathered in her eyes.

"Repeat it!" this time he bellowed it out, his beautiful and masculine voice filled with a cold fury.

She bit her lip, trembling increasing as one of his hands touched the side of her face. His cool skin felt so good in some many ways against her heated flesh. The hand against her face was not smooth, far from it, but some how the roughness of his elegant hands did things to her in ways that she could never explain in words, despite her extensive vocabulary. Everything was too much. His flesh against hers, the feeling of no escape, and his maddening nearness made her snap. She repeated herself, refusing to let her tears free as she spoke the words that were the truest, and most deepest secret she held.

"I love you... I love you, Severus Snape! I love you!"

He gazed at her for at the most half a second before he moved so quickly that she could hardly register what was happening. His lips on hers could be only described as hungry. And her emotions were on par with that. She kissed him with everything she had, basking in the glory that the many kisses were. She couldn't count how many times their lips met, it could have been dozens, thousands, but she didn't care how many. The point was that they where there. She treasured each meeting, memorizing each feeling and sensation that coursed through her, hardly noting the small noises that came from her, but always noting the deep powerful noises that came from him. She could have spent an eternity like this, doing nothing but this forever. But all too soon, he pulled away, stepping back ever so slightly to look at her properly.

"Well..." she whispered out.

"Well..." he copied, eyes slightly glazed, and filled with something that made her want to kiss him all over again.

"I think I have my answer to whether our not you feel the same way." she this slightly warily, hoping beyond hope that she was right.

He looked down at her, his usually distant, emotionless eyes filled with amusement.

"I dare say you do..." he said this softly, voice filled with sarcasm.

She smiled, so widely that she almost feared that she would tear her skin. She knew she wasn't going to get an I love you back, not yet. He was a man that damaged, and he could never trust anyone, not even himself. She knew in time that he would say it, and she was patient. Not to mention as stubborn as a mule. She wished he would say it of course, she wanted to hear his silky voice say it, she wanted that more than anything. But she wasn't a moron. And she had come to know Severus better than most, especially in these past few months. So she settled, she settled for ever she could get from him. Besides, she had always been a gambler at heart, so why not gamble the most she could offer? Herself. She was snapped out of her inner monologue as she felt both of his cool hands touch her cheeks, gently, as if he was afraid to break her.

"This is best kept secret..." he whispered softly, his lips hovering over her forehead, his breath washing over it.

She nodded, after all he was her potions master, the man that was teaching her the fine art of brewing. She needed this higher degree in potions to become a Healer, and she could help but think of him to teach her, even after all these years after her school days. Teacher and student relationships were taboo, muggle world or wizarding, so they needed to be careful. Never mind that she was of age in both worlds. They just have to wait. With the softest of sighs, he kissed her temple, making her eyes close at the sweet gesture. The tenderness he displayed with such a kiss seemed completely out of character for him, but she really couldn't bring herself to care, instead she just let the feelings it provoked wash over her.


	2. Let It Be And Unconditionally

It was the little things. The briefest touches, the lingering looks. The smiles that she gave him. The quick, chaste kisses slipped in the fleeting moments eyes were elsewhere. It was maddening torture, he had to admit, to have to stare at her day after day, and not do anything. The Potions Lab was a very lonely place, not many people came down to make him suffer through their presence. But he still couldn't risk doing anything. Because she was still his student.

His student. It was a wonder to him really, that the small, bushy haired girl he had meet years ago

would come to mean this much to him. She had grown past being that insufferable know it all that had annoyed him. She was still a know it all, he admitted, but know she was not at all insufferable. In fact, she was more than tolerable, she was, not that he would ever admit it to anyone but her, a true delight to have around.

He had no idea why she was with a cold, ugly and old bastard like him. She was a pretty girl, not at all a veela, but she was pretty. Her was bushy curls seemed to have calmed down after years of being untamable, as they were now silky, not at all bushy. They more than often than not were held back in a slightly messy bun. Her skin was pale, but unlike his did not have the sallow, ugly undertone. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes were big, doe like things that had him drowning ever single time he risked a glance at the deep brandy color that they were. But that wasn't the only reason, she was intelligent, so smart that he remembered Dumbledore even had remarked how one day the girl would surpass even his own intellect. He had no doubt she would. But that fact only made him question it further. Why did she love him?

He was currently sitting on a stiff stool, mixing the potion in front of him with quick, sure movements, and risking a glance or more to the girl that stood somewhere to the left of him, mixing at the same pace as him. She was humming under her breath, her small hands mixing the potion in tune with the soft and quick paced jig. Her foot tapped softly on the floor, it too in tune with her hummed song. It was always bewitching to watch her work. She always found new ways to memorize him with her brewing. One moment she could be humming, the next using a free hand to conduct an invisible audience.

She looked up suddenly, her brandy eyes trapping his black ones with just that glance. He drowned in her eyes for an endless moment, relishing in the love that oozed out of them, shining with such a brilliant light that it made his breath catch. She then smiled, widely, a dimple making itself known in her right cheek, as her pearly whites flashed in the dim light of the potions lab. Intoxicating, he had to admit, it was intoxicating just to look at her. To kiss her. To just have her be just _**his**_. His, and no one else's.

She then broke the conection, her eyes slipping back to her potion, and the smile on her lips still wide as she countinued the bewitching movements of her brewing. He figured it out in that moment that he didn't care why she loved him. It didn't matter to him. It couldn't matter to him, because she was his. She did love him. And he didn't have to question it, no, because he knew she really did love him. This was the one thing in his life that he didn't have to analyze, to break down to know every single little detail. No, this was the thing that he could simply let it be.

And he basked in the simple glory that was Hermione's love. Unknowingly having the smallest smile on his face at the fact. Hermione on the other hand did notice his smile, which in turn made her own smile widen almost painfully. The smile changed his face, made him look decade's younger, and made her swoon a little. She really did love that man, unconditionally.


End file.
